Reaching beyond the farmgate on disease prevention among pigs

We’ve launched a new campaign targeting small-scale pig keepers with the message: Don’t give disease a piggyback.

This includes smallholders, pet pig owners and rare breed enthusiasts, a group we don’t traditionally reach through our core activity.

While individual holdings are small, collectively they represent a significant part of the national picture, and gaps in awareness create real risk.

The campaign builds on our wider African swine fever (ASF) prevention work, with simple and direct messaging aimed at this audience bing shared across channels they already engage with, such as social media groups, vets, shows and breed societies.

The focus is on a small number of actions that make a real difference:

• Don’t feed food waste
• Follow movement rules
• Keep basic biosecurity in place

These are simple but critical steps to prevent disease from entering and spreading.

By reaching people who may not see themselves as part of the industry, the campaign helps close a longstanding gap in awareness.